Hugh Bayley: The re-franchising process creates uncertainty for railway employees and, indeed, for the travelling public who have been used to a high quality service from Great North Eastern Railway on the east coast main line and do not know what the future will hold. Will my hon. Friend do everything he can to bring the uncertainty to an end as quickly as possible? Is he able to tell us when the end will be and the new franchisee will be announced?

Douglas Alexander: The hon. Gentleman is getting rather ahead of himself. First, we have to take forward the continuing work of the rail accident investigation branch in clarifying exactly what happened at Grayrigg and the reasons for that particular tragedy. I understand that that will continue to take some months. I am sure that we should allow the rail accident investigation branch the opportunity to do that work. In addition, however, it obviously continues to be an option for the ORR, the safety regulator, to set down conditions for Network Rail. My understanding is that, post the tragedy at Grayrigg, the ORR is satisfied with the steps that Network Rail has taken.

Henry Bellingham: Is the Minister aware that a recent survey revealed that 95 per cent. of civil legal aid practitioners believe that the changes will make their work non-viable? That puts a huge amount of extra pressure on community law firms and advice centres in London that may well be unable to cope. Shelter, Mind and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children all predict that the legal aid system will soon reach breaking point. Who should the public trust: world-class charities that help the vulnerable day in and day out, or Ministers?

Vera Baird: Interestingly, I had e-mail correspondence with the chief executive of Shelter, who is confidently moving his team of legal advisers into that future framework of supply. I do not doubt that in past months there has been a great deal of anxiety and concern about the size of the change necessary to take on the challenges of that Carter-type proposal, but people have grasped the fact that it is profitable to make those transitions, which will enable them to deliver a good service. I am holding meetings practically daily with suppliers, who are coming round to the notion that they should look to the future. It is time that the Tory spokesmen did the same.

David Wright: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make further provision about penalties relating to parking on private land; to make provision about compliance with notices concerning parking for disabled people on private land; and for connected purposes.
	I want to make it clear from the outset that people who provide private parking spaces on their land should be able to protect them. Many businesses are affected by people who park vehicles on their land and create problems. Pubs, shops and businesses in town centres want to ensure that their customers can park, and we need to make sure that they have the right to do that. It is important for businesses to protect their parking spaces for their customers and employees.
	Having said that, many organisations use private security companies to enforce parking regulations on their land. The Private Security Industry Act 2001 provides for the regulation of such matters. It also provides for the security industry authority to license organisations that undertake immobilising and clamping activity in private car parks.
	In addition to holding a valid security industry authority licence, vehicle immobilisers must observe specific requirements. First, a vehicle must not be clamped, blocked or towed if it displays a valid disabled badge or if it is a marked as an emergency services vehicle that is in use as such. Secondly, any licence holder who collects a release fee must provide a receipt, which must include: the location of the clamping or towing; the name and signature of the person who clamped the vehicle; the licence number of the organisation that carried out the clamping, and the date on which it happened. The immobiliser must wear a licence. Those who work without a licence commit a criminal offence, which is punishable on conviction by a fine of up to £5,000, six months' imprisonment or both.
	The problem is that there is no clarity about the sort of signage that private clamping companies have to provide on sites before clamping is undertaken. There is no standard process. The fees are also a problem. The legislation simply states that fees should be "reasonable". That causes several difficulties.
	The BBC in the midlands has recently undertaken some work in Birmingham to examine the operation of private clamping in the city. It got a woman driver to park a vehicle on a privately owned space and leave the scene. Almost immediately, the clampers from a private company emerged and began to tow away the vehicle. The woman returned to be told that she had to pay hundreds of pounds in cash to the company to release the vehicle and that she would be escorted to a cash machine to make the payment. When she said that she could not pay, she was left to make her own way home alone late at night. The company's behaviour was clearly unacceptable. However, people will pay almost anything to get their car released.
	My constituent, Paul Watling from Telford, was also caught out on an area of land in Birmingham. He fully acknowledged that he was parking in a private space. However, the signage on the site was poor and he had to pay £350 to get his car released from clamping. He was virtually frogmarched to the cash machine by some fairly aggressive and intimidating clamping agents.
	The Bill proposes that clamping companies must inform the local authority in their area of activity of the scope, style and location of signs to be used on private land. I am trying to drive towards some standardisation of the signage in local authority areas. The Bill also proposes giving the local authority the power to set a range in which penalty fees should be set. Clearly, that may vary between different towns and cities, depending on the market and the scarcity of parking spaces. I believe that the decision should be made locally by the local authority. However, we should consider setting a maximum amount for such fees—£350 in cash is extortionate.
	The second element of the Bill concerns the provision of disabled parking spaces on private land. The Department for Transport provides advice on the provision of spaces for disabled drivers. The Disability Discrimination Act requires service providers to take reasonable steps to ensure that disabled people can enjoy services. Department for Transport leaflet 5/95 suggests:
	"For car parks associated with shopping areas, leisure or recreational facilities, and places open to the general public: A minimum of one space for each employee who is a disabled motorist, plus 6 per cent. of the total capacity for visiting disabled motorists. The numbers of designated spaces may need to be greater at hotels and sports stadia that specialise in accommodating groups of disabled people."
	Most disabled persons' parking bays in off-street car parks, such as supermarket car parks, are not covered by blue badge scheme regulations. Such car parks and parking bays are likely to be privately owned and managed by the individual business: the agreement, and any cost to use them, will be between the owner and the motorist or customer.
	If a disabled motorist or passenger complains to, for example, a supermarket that a non-disabled motorist has parked in a disabled bay, an employee of the store can ask the driver to move their car but cannot legally insist on it. In some instances, the owners of private car parks are reluctant to take action against people, because they think that it is bad for business. In my view, not providing bays for people with disabilities and mobility problems is bad for business. One of the problems is that spaces tend to be close to the store and people feel that they can park briefly in one of those spaces when they use a cash machine or pick up friends or family who have been shopping. Such behaviour is not acceptable.
	A number of surveys have been conducted on the use and abuse of disabled parking bays in recent years. In 2005, a survey carried out by Baywatch found that one in five bays were being abused on supermarket sites. The Bill would require all owners of private car parks with disabled parking bays to have a clear written strategy on enforcement, which is available to the public on request. It would also require owners to submit an annual report on their enforcement activity to the local authority and the Disability Rights Commission or its successor bodies.
	I have considered proposals to extend the blue badge scheme on to private land and, for example, supermarket car parks. My main concern about an extension of that scheme is that many authorities already find it difficult to enforce the provision on public car parks. The Bill does not therefore include such proposals. Supermarkets and other car park owners who provide disabled places are, however, drinking in the last chance saloon: they need to act more effectively, or we will have to bring in more draconian legislation.
	In closing, may I thank Douglas Campbell, chairman of Mobilise, and John Pring of Disability Now for their help on this issue? I also thank the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), whose support for the Bill has been especially helpful. I am conscious that the House is fairly full this afternoon. To ensure that the next speaker can make his points, perhaps Members will leave the Chamber quietly once they have listened to the presentation of my Bill.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	Bill ordered to be brought in by David Wright, John Mann, Mr. Iain Wright, Mr. Dai Havard, Chris Mole, Mike Penning, Philip Davies, Mr. Robert Flello, Martin Salter, Helen Jones and Ann Coffey.

Jack Straw: It is right to ask that, and in my judgment it is perfectly possible to put in place safeguards to protect the primacy of this House while changing its composition. This point is central to the issue under discussion, and I will develop it shortly.

Jack Straw: No, if the hon. Gentleman will excuse me.
	Tomorrow night, I shall vote for a 50 per cent. elected, 50 per cent. appointed hybrid House—my personal first preference, and where I think consensus might lie— and then for a 60 per cent. and 80 per cent. elected House, as well. I shall vote against the other alternatives.
	As I have just mentioned, the principal reason I previously supported a wholly appointed House was that I considered that the introduction of any elected element into the Lords could, by virtue of that fact, inevitably challenge the primacy of this House, which is fundamental to our democracy. However, as I read the royal commission report, the associated research evidence and much other material, I was presented with facts about other countries' experience that simply did not support my view of an automatic link between an elected element in the Lords and an erosion of the primacy of this place. The evidence shows instead that a country can have a powerful elected second Chamber—the United States, for example—or a weak elected second Chamber, four examples being Japan, Spain, Poland and the Czech Republic. A nation may have an appointed second Chamber with relatively limited powers, or an appointed second Chamber with relatively substantial powers. There are, in truth, no iron rules linking composition and power, except the rule that allows self-confident democracies to set their own rules—their constitutions—and to change them when they judge it right to do so.
	Having considered the evidence, I was struck by two other things. First, after extensive deliberation the royal commission, the Public Administration Committee and the unofficial but authoritative Breaking the Deadlock group each came down in favour of a hybrid House of part-elected, part-appointed membership—of albeit different proportions. Each of these all-party committees had thought long and hard about how a hybrid second Chamber could be established in such a way as to avoid competition with this House. They made recommendations to that end, which have greatly informed the conclusions of the Government and of the cross-party group.

David Clelland: If we had a hybrid House—the worst of all possible options—would my right hon. Friend care to speculate which group of Members would have the greatest legitimacy: the elected or the appointed?

Jack Straw: I agree with part of what my hon. Friend says. I do not agree with the implication that we have something to fear from a partially elected second Chamber. Other countries manage very well with having one House which has primacy and a partially or wholly elected second Chamber. I said in my evidence to the Cunningham Committee a few months ago that if we have a partially or wholly elected second Chamber—I do not support a wholly elected second Chamber—the appetite to challenge the power of this place will increase. We have to anticipate that when we are drawing up the framework in which a partially elected House should operate, but we have the ultimate say because of the Parliament Acts.
	We are not in the position of some other first Chambers in other countries; we can decide. My view is that we ought to decide. It comes back to the answer that I gave to the hon. Member for St. Ives. No one is arguing; everyone is agreed that the current powers of this place in relation to the powers of the Lords or any second Chamber should remain the same. The only issue is the means by which they are delivered, because in part they are delivered by conventions. If we believe that those conventions are likely to be too weak, we can supplement them by resolutions and underpin them by statute.

Nicholas Winterton: As a member of the Joint Committee on Conventions, I think that it is important that the House is aware that the Joint Committee stated clearly that, if the composition of the Lords were changed, the Committee or another joint committee would have to review the conventions because the conventions apply to the present House of Lords and the composition of the present House of Lords. It is quite wrong that this House should assume that that Committee, which sat at great length and considered the matter in great depth, had any other view than that the current conventions covered the current House of Lords.

Jack Straw: I fully accept what the hon. Gentleman says, but he will also recognise that at paragraph 61, which discusses how or whether the conventions could operate in a changed House, his Committee said that the matter was "outside the remit" of the Committee. The predecessor Cunningham Committee said that, even with elections, it envisaged
	"a continuation of the present role of the House of Lords, and of the existing conventions governing its relations with the House of Commons."
	If we make a decision for a partially elected element, there will of course be cross-party talks, because all three main parties will have agreed on the direction in which we should move and, to reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas), we will be able to do a better job than was done on devolution, which happened much more rapidly, not in 98 years—or even in 98 months. As someone who took part, in opposition and then in government, in the discussions on devolution, I realise that speed was necessary because of the pent-up feeling for devolution, but if we had had more time, we could have done a better job.

Jack Straw: I will give way in a second. I know that the hon. Gentleman wants to ask me about the bishops— [ Interruption. ]—or at least that is my guess. Whatever it is I am happy to take his question, but perhaps he will let me catch my breath before I take the next intervention.
	There was agreement, too, about the need to ensure that membership of the reformed House reflected the gender and racial diversity of the United Kingdom, and the range of religious opinion. All agreed that the special arrangements for membership of the House by a limited number of hereditary peers should come to an end. The group agreed that a long transition, with new Members phased in, would be essential to the success of any reform, and that Members should serve a lengthy, single term of office. Restricting the period of office to one term with no prospect of re-election was a key royal commission recommendation to ensure that elected Members of the second Chamber played a different role from that of MPs, and to prevent them from becoming rivals competing for popular support.

Pete Wishart: I am sorry to disappoint the right hon. Gentleman but my question is not about bishops. I want to take him back a few sentences in his speech. In this round of House of Lords reform, is not the elephant in the room cash for peerages and the public's great concern that the House of Commons can put people into the other legislature on ability to pay? What recommendations on party political appointments will the right hon. Gentleman make to ensure that the upper House is not full of cronies and funders?

Jack Straw: The hon. Gentleman has a particular view on that matter although I do not think the point was a particularly worthy one, but there is an issue— [ Interruption. ] There is an issue and I shall deal with it in a second.
	There was also agreement on many other issues.

Anne Begg: I ask my question from a genuine desire to know the answer. As someone who would like to abolish the House of Lords—although I realise that the first motion may fall—I am concerned that if I vote for a wholly elected House I will tie myself to accepting a particular form of election. Can my right hon. Friend clarify that point, and confirm that whatever the arguments or discussions about the composition of the House, the form of election is still to be decided and will be fully discussed and debated in this place?

William Cash: In the White Paper, the first-past-the-post system is dismissed on the grounds that the arguments in favour of it are relevant only to the Chamber in Parliament that delivers the "Government of the day". What does the right hon. Gentleman mean by that? Surely he recognises that the element of appointment by the party leadership, which is inherent in the partially open list system that he proposes, would automatically give an enormous amount of power to those who run the parties in question.

Jack Straw: I certainly do not accept that. Let me spell out that our proposal is not for the current system in use for the European parliamentary elections. In that closed list system, in practice, voters have to vote for all members of a party's list if they vote for one. Under the partially or semi-open list system, that is not the case. Voters may, if they wish, vote for a list or they may allocate their vote to a specific individual candidate. The result is that voters can influence which candidates are elected as well as which party. In other words, they can "break the list".
	To those people, such as the hon. Gentleman, who claim that this system is no better than appointment by party leaders, I say that there is a world of difference. There is as much voter discretion under this system as under the first-past-the-post system, where in each constituency it is the party that selects the candidate, not the voter. The semi-open list system is our current preference, but if the House can come to a conclusion on composition, I am certainly ready and willing to consider alternatives to it.
	The votes tomorrow night are on the resolutions on the Order Paper—no more and no less. The White Paper is there to inform the debate and to provide the context for it. But there is no resolution to seek endorsement of the White Paper, and, in any event, we ultimately will give effect to the wishes of the House by legislation, not by a White Paper.

Theresa May: The hon. Gentleman was probably longing to make that intervention, but I suggest that he actually listens to what I am saying.
	I have looked into a few other democracies that appoint their upper Chambers. In Slovenia, membership is divided between representatives of local interest groups and non-commercial activities, employers, employees, farmers, tradesmen and craftsmen, and independent professionals. Hon. Members might think that that is a hangover from Slovenia's communist past, but I think that it demonstrates the absurdity of trying to predict and provide experts for a legislature.
	The proposals set out in the White Paper would create an upper Chamber that is insufficiently democratic and insufficiently independent. To be fair to Labour Members, many of them understand that and want a more democratic other place. Some of them are even in the Cabinet. Last time round, in 2003, the Secretaries of State for Transport, for Northern Ireland and for Health voted for a wholly elected upper Chamber, and it has since emerged that the International Development Secretary agrees with them. However, tellingly, last time around, the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Leader of the House disagreed and voted for a wholly appointed House of Lords. According to the former Minister for Europe, the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane), it was an open secret that the Prime Minister had ordered the Whips to mobilise votes to stop any reform that reduced his power of patronage by nominating Lords.
	I suggest that the division in the Cabinet is the genuine reason for the messy compromise that the Leader of the House has presented. Only four years ago, the Prime Minister said:
	"Do we want an elected House, or do we want an appointed House? I personally think that a hybrid between the two is wrong and will not work."—[ Official Report, 29 January 2003; Vol. 398, c. 877.]
	Now the Government make the very proposal that the Prime Minister once described as
	"wrong and will not work."

Richard Burden: My right hon. Friend seems to be missing the point that one House can have the final say. That is where primacy is derived. Is he saying that a second Chamber should not have the right to question or revise? If he is saying that, it is suspect from a democratic point of view.

Andrew George: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the reasons for the outcome in 2003 was that we had put the cart before the horse? We decided to consider the composition before we considered matters of convention—before we decided what the second Chamber was for. That should have been settled before we made the decision about its appropriate composition.

Simon Hughes: Not for a second.
	I take exactly the phrase that has been put into the debate by the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe. The view on these Benches is that the second Chamber should revise, improve and delay, but not veto. That will remain its position when it is elected.
	I have heard no argument from any quarter of this House or the other that the relationship between the Lords and the Commons should change—that the primacy of the Commons should be changed. We have a settled constitutional position. This Chamber is where Governments gain their vote of confidence, where Governments can be defeated and where Prime Ministers fall. This is where the Prime Minister and Ministers account to Parliament. There has not been any argument that that should change. We do not argue it; no other party argues it. So I hope that people understand that this is not about changing the primacy of this place. This place will remain the primary House of Parliament; the other House will be complementary and will help us to do our job better.
	The last point was picked up in the previous debate. If the other place was elected by thirds, that would also weaken any potential challenge. No one could arrive there saying, "We have a majority, we are elected by the people all over Britain, and we can challenge the Commons." They would come in as a partially returned group, and they would not have the same authority as we have after being elected on the same day from all over the country, on the basis of manifestos, with everyone knowing that from us the Government will be chosen.

Alan Williams: I will be, I hope, commendably brief. I want to address only one real issue. It is right to say that there is unanimity about the primacy of this House in the present context, but anyone who thinks that, if the proposed legislation goes through, that primacy will remain, is living in a dream world. The primacy derives absolutely—not just in part—from the fact that we are the elected Chamber, and because of that the other House observes conventions. It therefore follows—it seems a rather simple issue to me—that if we go down the path of producing what, if this takes place at all, will eventually turn into an entirely elected House of Lords, the concept of primacy will disappear. I think that the Government recognise that, and that that is why they have gone for this rather strange compromise position.
	I have said this before, but I like repeating what I have said before: hybridity is not a solution. It is a holding position and a stalling of the inevitable. It is unsustainable in the long term. Just think of the realties of a political Chamber where the elected Members—whatever percentage there happen to be—time and again find that the unelected Members are swinging the majority away from them. What will happen in such a situation? The more emotive and high-profile the issue, the more likely it will be that the elected Members of the other place, backed by some Members of this House, will demand even more elected Members, and so the process will go on. Once we start down this road, we will eventually arrive at a fully elected House of Lords.

John Maples: I was going to say that the sort of people who will run for election to the House of Lords, the Senate or whatever it is called will be people who cannot enter the Commons. I say this with modesty and as much graciousness as I can: the standards of intelligence, talent and ability needed to get into this House are not superhuman or of Olympic proportions. So if the other House consists of people who are not smart enough or good enough to get into this place, what will be up there? Who will want to run for the other House? It will have no power. It will not be a Chamber of talented, independent people holding the Government to account. It will be made up of people who cannot get into this place.
	What we will lose in the process is the independence and experience of people in the Lords. I know that many Members are party politicians, but a defence debate or a foreign affairs debate in the House of Lords is very well informed by people who have been senior diplomats or senior military officers. That will go. Such people will not run for election to some organisation that has no power, and anyway, they probably do not want to run on a party ticket. The only way to get elected—the only way one can get elected to anything in this country, with the very odd exception—is by being a party candidate in an election.
	Once people have been elected to the other House, they will start interfering on our turf as Members of Parliament. They will pick up constituency cases and local issues because they will want to get into the papers, just like we do. People will go to them and ask for their help, and we will have competition, just as I understand our Scottish colleagues do now, in an extremely inconvenient and annoying way. I suppose Members of the other place will want offices, secretaries, researchers and large office buildings with atriums and rented trees in them. The cost will go through the roof, and there is no evidence at all that people want more expensive Government than they have at present.
	I reserve whatever vitriol I can muster in the debate for the ghastly appointments commission. We are all agreed that hereditary peers should go from that place. It is nonsense that because his ancestor fought with the Black Prince at the battle of Crecy, the great-great-great-great-grandson should have powers of legislation, just as much nonsense as if the great-great-grandfather had given some money to Lloyd George, the great-great-grandson should have legislative powers. But if those are not reasons for having legislative powers, why is being appointed by some statutory commission a reason for having legislative power?
	Who will be on the commission? It looks tailor-made for my good friend Sir Hayden Phillips, and a more admirable public servant I cannot envisage. But that Hayden Phillips and a committee of people like him should have the power to decide who should be legislators and who should not, I find nonsense and abhorrent. I would much rather the Prime Minister had that power, because when the Prime Minister exercises the power, we know who has exercised it, the public knows who has exercised it, we know who is responsible for it and we can see it being done openly. If we have a commission, it will sit in private.
	The Appointments Commission sometimes comes up with extremely odd recommendations. On the first lot that it came up with, it said, "We wanted to make sure that all these people felt comfortable in here," because it had appointed a lot of people just like its own members. That is what a statutory commission would do. No—let us have the Prime Minister of the day make appointments. If he wants to appoint 359 cronies or donors or whatever this Prime Minister has done, we know who did it. The electorate can hold him to account for that and so can the press. When my party is in power, as I sincerely hope it will be soon, our leader will be accountable for the exercise of that power. Let us have it out in the open, where we can see it being exercised.
	The problem is that we have set incompatible objectives for the House of Lords. We want it, apparently, to have democratic legitimacy, and to be representative but to have independence and expertise. It requires only a moment's thought to realise that one cannot find all four qualities in an individual, and certainly not in a body of individuals. At present there is a great deal of independence and expertise in the Lords, but no democratic legitimacy and precious little representativeness.
	If we go to an elected House, we will have a great deal of legitimacy and representativeness, but very little expertise and virtually no independence. We will not have the sort of expertise that we get from the retired diplomats and generals whom I mentioned, speaking in foreign affairs and defence debates, and we will not get independence because the only way to be elected will be on a party ticket.
	Today's debate has a great ring of familiarity about it. It is like coming in on a movie that one has seen three times before being repeated on BBC4, and I confess that I am making much the same speech as I made before, as the right hon. Member for Swansea, West said he did. Perhaps we should leave the debate to those who were elected at the last election, to see whether they have different opinions. They may be the people who change the vote. I very much doubt whether anybody except the Leader of the House, who is standing on his head on the issue, will have changed their mind about it. Most of us thought about it very seriously indeed.
	Last time the House voted for no change, which I thought was a sensible decision. I rather hope that it will do so again. What we have is something that works. The problem of the House of Lords is that although it works in practice, it does not work in some arbitrary theory. It works, so let us not try to fix it.

Ben Chapman: The 2005 Labour manifesto requires us to reform the upper Chamber so that it is
	"effective, legitimate and more representative without challenging the primacy of the House of Commons."
	I readily accept that. The point at issue is how we achieve it. For me, any proposal that contains an elected element could not achieve that manifesto requirement. A small but significant amount of reform to the House of Lords as it currently exists would achieve those requirements.
	It has been much said that the post-1999 House of Lords, though in need of further reform, is doing a good job. Most people with an opinion on the subject say that. It is not broke. Statistically, it has not given the Government an easy ride. The number of rebellions, if that is the right term, between 1992 and 1999 was 133. Since then it has exceeded 350. There is widespread agreement that the 1999 reforms were a shot in the arm. We have an invigorated second Chamber, working to scrutinise and hold the Government of the day to account. It is more effective, more legitimate and more representative. Many of the options before us would damage the crucial tenets of the manifesto.
	The question that has been asked is how an all-appointed House of Lords can be seen as legitimate. That presumes that an all or partially elected Chamber would, of necessity, be more so. Why? Elections are an essential component of a participative democracy, but they are not the sum total of that democracy. If elected peers took the party Whip and were less prepared to challenge the Executive, would that make them more legitimate? If the turnout for their elections did not break the 30 per cent. barrier, would that make them more legitimate? If a list system prevented a clear positive vote for a single candidate, would that make it more legitimate?
	The convention that no one party should enjoy an overall majority has boosted confidence in the upper Chamber, as has the removal of all but the 92 hereditaries and the increasing number of people not taking the Whip. As has been said,
	"legitimacy may come from other places than those you would immediately think."
	I fear that the standing of politicians is generally low, and whatever the intention of the White Paper, it will add to that public opinion. The temptation for meddling by the Whips under any system involving elections, to the extent that debate and scrutiny might be curtailed, would be too great. One thing is surely clear and agreed—that we do not want in the Lords a replica of the system of Whips and party discipline that we have in the Commons. A fully or partially elected upper House would encourage that. If, for example, a piece of legislation was stalled or even blocked by the Lords, it would be difficult for the Whips. It is in their nature not to tolerate such a situation, knowing that they could intervene with their party affiliates to bring them into line if they so chose. Thus the system of checks and balances would be weakened.
	These are only hypothetical questions at this stage, but only in the sense that the bridge has not been crossed. If we were to cross it and the decision was taken and implemented, it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, and time consuming to try to reverse it. An all-elected House would present a challenge to our basic system of democracy. The principle of one Member, one constituency would go out of the window, to be replaced by an unpleasant spectacle of rivalry in particular locations between the two Houses. One can imagine that that would be difficult if two people claiming legitimacy in the same area were from different parties, but it might be more difficult if they were from the same party. Even if the geographical boundaries were different, people would still claim legitimacy within a particular area. Legislation proposed by the Executive on a mandate from the Commons could be stalled on a competing mandate from the Lords. Stalemates could ensue and not be broken without back-room deals behind closed doors, away from public view. That is surely not what we want. Far from having increased accountability, we would have less.
	A hybrid House would be even worse, with the danger that peers would not only challenge the Commons but challenge each other. Suppose that a vote was forced through on the back of the votes of appointed Members. Elected peers would be justifiably aggrieved. Elected Members might well set up "constituency" offices; unelected Members probably would not. Elected Members, notwithstanding the various systems of election being floated, could talk of "representing their constituents", or make claims to that effect; unelected Members could not. Elected Members could campaign in constituencies, as they saw them, and speak on local issues, vying for attention with MPs; unelected Members could not. That two-tier system would be the worst of both worlds.
	Whatever the proportion chosen by election, I have yet to come across a list system that would be clearly understandable by the electorate and offer a real choice of candidates. As Lord Steel has said:
	"Commons members should ponder what will happen when we have Lords members interfering in their constituency affairs on the grounds that they too have a mandate. They should talk to Scottish MPs and constituency MSPs who have been irritated by the activities of some of those elected to the Scottish Parliament on party regional lists. It is not a happy precedent."
	Why risk creating such a situation in England and making it even worse in Scotland and Wales? It is specious to assume that reforming the second Chamber in the manner proposed would reinvigorate our politics and democracy. It is often said that the previous vote was a train crash or a poor day for the House, but in fact it reflected the view that there was no consensus in the House and that none of the options on offer was better than the status quo. We are told that because previous attempts at wholesale reform have ended in compromise or defeat, we have a duty to "finish the job" and that anything less will amount to a failure, but that does not account for the changed circumstances of acceptance of the new Lords in which we find ourselves.
	In the same way that a convention that no party has an overall majority has been established and accepted following the 1999 reforms, we need evolution, not revolution. We should of course abolish the remaining hereditary peers and ensure that the appointments commission is statutory and has a codified role, as proposed by the campaign for an effective second Chamber. Those are real and substantive reforms that would preserve the best of what we now have. They would also be entirely consistent with manifesto commitments. The proposals in the White Paper, on the other hand, would not serve anyone's interests. The test of a good policy is not that it is the one that least dissatisfies the least number of people, which is the most positive argument that has been put forward for many of the proposals. Last year, a Populus poll found that 70 per cent. of people thought that the House of Lords was "doing a good job". That is a figure that most primary Chambers would die for.
	The "elected" options before us are all seemingly simple answers to a complex problem, but there is no simple answer other than reforming the present House of Lords on a limited basis. For all the talk of the popular vote as a means to re-engage the public, there is no clamour as regards any "legitimacy deficit" in the Lords. Nobody mentions it to me on the doorstep; indeed, people are astonished that we do not have better things to do at this time than to be considering this issue. Why on earth it has been brought forward now, I fail to understand. Yes, people are concerned to bring the Executive to account, but that is what checks and balances are for. We do not elect our judges or professors, but they are not illegitimate. The "key principles" set out in the White Paper—that of a balance between parties, Cross-Bench and independent Members, religious representation, racial and gender balance and regional representation—can all be achieved with a system of appointments. That may not be possible, or possible only at the cost of any real choice through a system involving elections.
	I want to end by urging caution. These constitutional arrangements are not ephemeral. The House of Lords has been around for hundreds of years. In the past few years it has done a much better job—

Douglas Hogg: My hon. Friend brings me to the exact point that I was about to make. I acknowledge the powerful argument, which he articulated, that an elected second Chamber could replicate the vices that I identified. The amendments that I tabled, which were understandably not selected, try to meet those objections. Mechanisms can be put in place. For example, I would support staggered elections and renewable terms—I do not agree with other hon. Members about that. I would choose the second Chamber by a proportional method other than the list system. I would ensure that Ministers were not Members of the second Chamber to reduce the Executive's powers of patronage.
	I am willing to admit that there is a risk along the lines that my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) expressed, but we must make a choice. If we fail to do our duties, we need at least, in the phrase of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), to shame ourselves. We should use another Chamber to shame ourselves into performing the duties that we should undertake.

Douglas Hogg: I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me, but I am conscious of time.
	Many hon. Members have said truthfully that, if we go down the road of an elected second Chamber, we will lose much expert and wise counsel that is presently found in the other place. That is a terrible price to pay—and we would pay it. For all the reasons that have been given, many persons in the other House would not stand for election.
	However, ultimately, we have to make a fundamental choice about powers. Legitimacy requires election. If we appoint, we diminish legitimacy. We cannot have a second Chamber that has greater powers or makes more robust use of existing powers unless it has political legitimacy. That means election. With a heavy heart, I therefore support a wholly elected Chamber to enable another place, by legitimate and democratic means, to face down an over-mighty Executive.

Clive Efford: I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House on his handling of the subject and on turning defeat into victory—that is not too ungenerous—when he retreated from the voting method for tomorrow. It is worth putting on record that the skill with which he tackled the matter did him credit.
	If we vote for nothing else tomorrow, we should introduce a measure in the near future to remove the remaining 92 hereditary peers. There is unanimous support for that among Labour Members, and perhaps it is a sign of how times change that so many Opposition Members have also argued in favour of it.
	I shall not vote for elections to the other place for two reasons, which I hope I can explain. First, we need to define the function that we want the House of Lords to perform. We can do that only when we have defined the role that we, as Members of the House of Commons, want to perform in scrutinising legislation. What exactly is the role of Back Benchers in the process?
	Much has been said about the legitimacy of the other place. I believe that its legitimacy is in its function and how well it performs it. We must therefore define exactly what we want it to do. As the White Papers states, and assuming that we vote for retaining a second Chamber—I shall follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) in voting for a monocameral system—we want it to be a revising and reforming Chamber that at times has the power to delay legislation and to ask the House of Commons and the Executive to think again. No one has suggested that we want a weaker second Chamber or that its performance of its current function, when it is not elected, is weak. We are not talking about removing powers from the House of Lords. No hon. Member has suggested that it does not perform as well as it might, even though it is not elected. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House made it clear in his opening speech that we are not considering altering conventions between the House of Commons and the House of Lords and undermining the supremacy of the House of Commons as the primary legislative Chamber.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) pointed out in an intervention at the beginning of the Leader of the House's address, Lord Kingsland has said that some Members of the other place believe that having elections to the second Chamber will increase its legitimacy and therefore its power to thwart and defy the House of Commons, and will fundamentally change the relationship between the House of Lords and the House of Commons. We have not had the opportunity to debate that, or to debate our own scrutiny functions. By definition, therefore, we have not resolved what we want from the second Chamber.
	We are being invited to approve a 50 per cent. elected and 50 per cent. appointed upper House. Some would say that that is too timid a proposal. According to the White Paper, however, the only way to secure the representation in the legislative process of all sections of the community—ethnic minorities, people from different religious backgrounds, all walks of life and professions—is to have some form of appointment in the House of Lords. I presume that those with particular areas of expertise will be appointed to that revising Chamber to perform the reform and scrutiny function and amend legislation, thereby using their expertise in the most beneficial way. As the White Paper states, only by accepting the principle of appointment can we deliver that expertise and the representation of all sections of the community.
	When politicians debate the problem of participation in elections, I am always amazed that, in our pompous way, we assume that the answer is another election—that another election will be the magic bullet that encourages people to turn out and vote. But what are we asking them to turn out and vote for? We are asking them to elect not a legislative body, but a body that scrutinises the legislation that the Government are attempting to introduce. I am not convinced that the electorate will all flood to vote for a body with such limited powers.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Bill Etherington) said that he was in favour of a 100 per cent. elected second Chamber. I would suggest, however, that someone with his independence of mind would not make it on to a party list system as proposed in the White Paper. It is not true to say that we are elected in exactly the same way; we do go through constituency parties, but there is a murky science behind the positioning of candidates on a list. The proposal would not have a dramatic impact on people's confidence in the democratic process or on turnout.
	The role of the House of Commons, and the relationship between Back Benchers and the Executive, needs to be resolved. I am a firm believer in the Select Committee system, which works extremely well, but we have been too reluctant and reticent to build on its success and effectiveness in scrutinising legislation. When the Leader of the House was Home Secretary, he set up the Special Standing Committee for the Immigration and Asylum Bill, which involved people from the wider community with an interest in the subject in making a difficult piece of legislation more effective and acceptable. That is one of the best examples of the process, on which we should build. Back Benchers should have their own committee of appointment, separate from the Executive, to appoint Members to such bodies and co-opt expertise from outside the House. If we had a debate about the role of the House of Commons, and not just one about the House of Lords, we could address that issue.
	I do not accept that Ministers need to be appointed in the House of Lords. If there are to be such Ministers—I hope not—the Leader of the House should at least accept the principle that they should come from among the elected Members, if there are any, and not from the appointed Members of the House of Lords.

Richard Burden: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), who made a characteristically thought-provoking speech.
	I want to speak about an issue that has arisen time and again today, the primacy of this Chamber. Let me put my cards on the table: I agree that this Chamber should have primacy, but I think it worth exploring what we mean by that. We should ask what is the primacy that we fear we shall lose if we have a predominantly elected second Chamber, what it allows us to do, and what the main function of this Chamber is.
	A number of those who argue most passionately against an elected second Chamber are those who are often also most passionate about the "majoritarian" system here in the House of Commons. It is no secret that I am not a great fan of our current electoral system, but there is a logic that tells us that if we go along with it and our party wins under first past the post, the role of the majority party is to deliver the Government's programme for that Parliament. Conversely, the role of the Opposition is to oppose and seek to thwart that programme.
	As I have said, I am not a fan of the current electoral system, but I do not have a particular problem with that arrangement. As a Labour MP, I want my Government to succeed. However, it is not as simple as that, is it? We have another role in this Chamber, and Parliament as a whole has another role: the role of scrutiny, even scrutiny of a Government who are the same colour as us. There are examples of that working quite well—I agree with those who have said the Select Committee system works pretty well—but when it comes to key issues, especially legislative issues, Parliament's scrutiny role can all too easily come into conflict with our role in delivering or, indeed, opposing a Government's programme.
	We saw an instance of that last week. It is no particular secret that the Offender Management Bill was somewhat controversial from the point of view of all parties. When Ministers and Whips tried to win around those of us who had one or two reservations, much of their effort consisted of trying to persuade us to exercise our scrutiny role in what they considered to be a better way—to persuade us, in other words, of the arguments in favour of the Bill.
	I do not think I am revealing too many trade secrets if I add that sometimes other arguments are brought to bear. We may be told "We have made certain concessions on this Bill, and the time has come to back off. Do you really want the Government whom you support to be defeated?"—defeated, that is, in this place. In such circumstances, the issue of loyalty—loyalty to what we believe in, loyalty to our party, loyalty to the overall cause—is tied, and the test becomes whether we follow the party line on a measure. We are told that our responsibility is to support the Government not just when we consider them to be doing the right thing, but when we do not.
	Those pressures apply in opposition as well. In many ways, opposition is the mirror image. I am sure that some Opposition Members thought there were some rather good things in the Offender Management Bill: indeed, I could quote Opposition spokespeople who said many of those things a few months ago. However, there was also a temptation, or a pressure, to take the opportunity to inflict some damage if there was a chance of doing so. That is the role of an Opposition.
	All that is not entirely wrong. We are living in the real world, a world of 24-hour media. The ability of a Government to deliver their programme is important to their credibility, and the ability to inflict damage and, if possible, defeat a Government is important to an Opposition who wish to build up their own credibility; but we are kidding ourselves if we think that that does not compromise our ability to scrutinise. We can react to that in different ways, and the process often conspires to push us into the role of either loyalist or rebel: both are entirely possible, and in a sense quite easy, in this Chamber. However, I believe that if we are to do our job as parliamentarians we should not perform one or other of those roles, because we must be both part of the legislature—we are representatives of our parties—and we must scrutinise as well. Because of the pressures on us, we cannot do that properly and effectively on our own. Primacy means that the House of Commons must have the final say—I agree with that—but it also means that we must allow ourselves to be challenged, and not challenged only on those things that it is convenient or okay for us to be challenged on, but on those things that it is difficult for us to be challenged on.
	Therefore, the debate about the role and composition of the second Chamber is not to do with the relationship of one House to the other House. In my view, it is about the relationship between Parliament and the legislature on the one hand and the Executive on the other. Some say that if we were to accept that there is a need for there to be revision and a democratic second Chamber—one that claims democratic legitimacy—that would create a problem for us. I do not agree; I think that to hold that view is to cling to a comfort blanket, and that does not reflect the real world. I take the opposite view: if we believe that a second Chamber must have the important constitutional role of scrutiny and revision, it must have a democratic legitimacy, although a different one—it needs term limits and a different method of election and a system that minimises, and probably eliminates, the chances of any party having an overall majority. If we were to have all of that, that would give us the chance of having a Chamber with a different composition and, hopefully, greater independence.
	I also think that there is a role for a minority of non-elected people, to retain some of the expertise that exists in the current House of Lords. In terms of an elected element, I say to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that I can live with a list system, but I do not think that we will get the independence that is wished for if it is a closed list system—or, indeed, just a partially open list system. An open list system is the route that should be chosen—or something similar that achieves that end.
	The presence of non-elected people can add to the strength and the role of the second Chamber. However, to those who say that we should retain the voices of such people in that Chamber—the voices of people who do not want to stand for election but who have something distinctive to contribute—and who say that the way to achieve that is by appointment and only by appointment, I say that if the second Chamber is to have the role proposed for it, it must be able to say something important to the people outside Parliament. In the last Parliament when Baroness Morris was a Member of this House, she gave a powerful speech in favour of a predominantly elected second Chamber. She said that it had to ring true with the people out there, and I agree. One of the things that will allow it to ring true is if it offers opportunities for anybody in this country who wants to have a role in the process of scrutiny, a role in the process of revision and a role in our democratic process, but who wants to have different roles from those entailed by standing for election to this House. Such people can put themselves forward to an appointments commission—and perhaps they can get appointed as a result of that. However, they should also have the right to stand for election and to say to the people in their region—or whatever the boundary is—that they want to perform those roles. If that were the case, that would be a part of what would make that second Chamber legitimate, and that would also add to its role of helping Members of this House to scrutinise legislation and to provide a check on the Executive. It would also be a stimulus to this House to do its job better and give greater clarity to the roles of Parliament and the Executive.

John Thurso: May I make it clear at the outset of my speech that my preferred option is for us to have a 100 per cent. elected Chamber? I used to believe in the predominantly elected option, which I defined as about 80 per cent. or 70 per cent. elected, until I attended a public meeting, and having stated that I wanted that little headroom for the great and the good who would not stand for election, somebody in the audience asked me to name them, and I could not. I therefore decided that 100 per cent. was the proper proportion. However, like the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), I am fairly certain that that will not be the outcome, and I will therefore happily accept a lower percentage of elected Members than 100 per cent.
	I am also on record as having said that I believe that Lords reform is a process and not an event. I believe that from the moment when elections are introduced, that will become an unstoppable process—I am in favour of that—and that we will eventually end up with an elected element of about 80 per cent. or 100 per cent. Therefore, I have a slightly different view from that of some of my colleagues, who might feel bound not to vote for a lower percentage. However, they are doing a very good job of trying to persuade me, and at the end of tomorrow night, having listened to the debate, I shall take my own counsel and decide what I should do.
	I also wish to make a point at the outset about hybridity. A number of Members have said that a hybrid House would be bound to fail. In response to that, I just point out that for 50 years the House of Lords was a hybrid House in that its Members included those who got there by an accident of birth and those who got there by an accident of patronage, and they co-existed perfectly happily. I believe in the good will of the men and women who will find themselves in that House, and I believe that they will be able to co-exist.
	It is important for those of us who believe in reform to state why we believe in that. Several Members have tonight used the old adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". It is seductive to think of the House of Lords as somewhere where diligent scrutiny work is done and wonderful debates are held and to believe that it is best left alone, but to think that is to make a very great mistake, because the House of Lords is fundamentally broken. It is the lack of legitimacy, which many Members have referred to, that makes it broken. For anybody who has sat in the other place and experienced hours and hours of work in Committee—with, I have to say, greater diligence than I have ever experienced in a Committee in this place—and on Third Reading and Report, it is sad to then see that work cavalierly tossed aside by a House that has rushed in to vote with no knowledge of what they have done, which is what happens. That 90 per cent. of such work goes to waste is not a particularly good recommendation.
	Any second Chamber that is not composed predominantly, or wholly, of an elected element will not be considered legitimate by us, by the media or by the public. It must have such legitimacy, and that is why I reject the idea that there should be an appointed House.

John Bercow: Although many peers work exceptionally hard and demonstrate regularly immense expertise, does the hon. Gentleman not agree that, on the whole, the most vociferous champions of an unreformed second Chamber are current Members of the unreformed second Chamber, and that on the principle that no one should be judged in his own cause we should not pay too much attention to that particular form of special pleading?

John Thurso: I agree. What happens is extraordinary; I have watched many people, including some members of my own party, go native very rapidly. There is a practical point in this—it is one of the reasons why I believe in introducing rolling elections. I would get rid of none of the appointed life peers. I would let them just quietly die off.
	Let me turn briefly to the unicameral system, which several Members have mentioned. For a unicameral system to work it has to be able to take a decision that goes against the Government—the Executive—and to be able to take that decision without bringing that Government down. That might work in small countries, but I do not think that it can work in large countries. Even with proportional representation and modernisation, it would not be possible to arrive at a situation where that could be made to work. In parenthesis, I should say that in my judgment the experience of the Scottish Parliament highlights that, because what happens there is that the elections under PR result in a negotiation at the beginning and there is then created through partnership the same sort of elected dictatorship that we get in this place with the first-past-the-post system.

Chris Bryant: I am more than delighted to follow the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso). He is the living embodiment of what can happen when somebody goes native when changing from one Chamber to the other—of what a good thing it can be to be subjected to the process of election.
	I start with a point that the hon. Gentleman made well. If we want a strong Parliament, we cannot have a partly illegitimate Parliament. We can have a strong Parliament that is able to do a proper job by its Government—incidentally, I believe that good government can happen only when Parliament does a good job by it—only if we make sure that it is not hampered, hobbled and crippled by part of its very constitution.
	There are significant problems with the way in which the House of Lords is presently constituted. It is extraordinary that some Members have argued today that part of our Parliament should be deliberately illegitimate. It is extraordinary that we are happy to see so unrepresentative a second Chamber as we presently have. I merely note the fact that the average age of Members of the second Chamber is 68. In the 19th century, this House had to introduce legislation to protect children from being sent to work at the age of 10 or 12. We should be protecting the ancient, the elderly and the decrepit, who should not be forced still to work at the age of 85 and 93. We should be enabling them to retire or to resign. It is extraordinary that people appointed to the second Chamber have their jobs for life. Of course, that means that somebody convicted of perjury, for instance, cannot be sacked and removed from the second Chamber. For that matter, peers cannot retire. One Liberal Democrat peer has tried to retire—sort of; he is just not attending any more—but officially and technically, he is still a Member of the second House.
	One Member pointed out earlier that the second Chamber now represents London almost exclusively. Of the 323 new peers appointed since 1997, 147 come from London and 38 come from elsewhere in the south-east of England; only three come from the north-east, and only five from the east midlands. It is wholly unrepresentative because appointment very rarely leads to anything other than an unrepresentative selection of people.

Chris Bryant: Indeed. The hon. Gentleman makes my point for me.
	The most extraordinary point—I find it odd that it has not been mentioned today so far—is the process of by-elections for hereditary peers. We already have a hybrid Chamber, with people who are elected to it, some who are there by appointment and the bishops, who are halfway between election and appointment, because each diocese has a process to determine support for them to be put in their posts.
	There are only 91 hereditary peers at present, and a by-election is being held. Forty-seven people could stand—they also form the electorate—and 43 of them are standing. All of those people are busily going around trying to persuade others to vote for them—and sometimes trying to persuade themselves to vote for themselves. It is hoped that some people will get more than their own vote. In any event, it is an extraordinary process. The last time we had a by-election for a hereditary peer, the Viscount Montgomery of Alamein—who is in favour of elections for the second Chamber—defeated an earl after a fifth redistribution of the votes. It is the only election in the British electoral system that uses the alternative vote.
	All of that brings the system into disrepute, and that is because it is based on three fundamentally flawed principles. The first is heredity. None of us—the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) may enlighten us later about whether he is an exception—believes that heredity is a principle that should be embodied in our constitution. Few of us would now choose a plumber because his father was also a plumber. It is bizarre that we should choose to believe that someone should be a legislator because his father was a legislator.
	Nor is appointment a suitable system. Many people have referred to expertise. Indeed, they have gloried in the expertise of the second Chamber. However, my experience of the Communications Act 2003 and the debates in both Houses was that although the debate in the House of Lords was informed by seven or eight former director-generals of the BBC or people who had run various broadcasting organisations, all their expertise referred to the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s. They were still talking about cathode ray tubes and whether the black and white television licence was too expensive, when we were trying to talk about embedded phonograms and other issues of today. The process of appointment, especially for life, will inevitably mean that the second Chamber will always be reactionary and out-of-date in its expertise.
	Another problem with appointment—and it affects all parties, not only the Labour party—is that it is like the proverbial tar baby. It is remarkably difficult to devise a system of appointment that does not collapse into cronyism or dodgy deals. That is why it would be almost impossible for any political party represented in this Chamber to suggest people for appointment to the second Chamber. Probably even Mother Teresa would not be able to be appointed to the second Chamber now, such is the level of distrust in the nation with the process of appointment.
	It has not been mentioned much, but every time that the public are asked how the second Chamber should be composed, they say it should be by election—

Chris Bryant: The Leader of the House corrects me. That is not to say that a single person has ever approached me in Treorchy market and said, "Listen, Chris. The most important thing you have to deal with is the House of Lords." Nobody does that, but when people are asked, they say that they prefer election. I know that some hon. Members have pooh-poohed that suggestion and said that it is because the public do not know better, but I think that we should trust the people more than that.
	The third principle by which people get to sit in the second Chamber is through the reserved seats for the bishops. I am glad that we are not voting on that tomorrow. I would personally prefer to remove the bishops, because I do not think that theocracy is a very good way to run a country, but I am glad that we are not having that vote tomorrow. Instead, we will divide on a set of clear proposals.
	There are two better principles for determining who sits in the second Chamber. First, many hon. Members have referred to the primacy of the Commons, and I also believe in that. The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross said that it should be primacy, but not supremacy. I believe that it should be primacy, but not exclusivity. It is vital—and we should enshrine it in statute, not just some gentleman's agreement as at present—that the Government of this country should be formed only by virtue of its majority in this Chamber and, for that matter, that the Prime Minister, and several other members of the Cabinet, can only be elected Members of this Chamber. That is not presently our constitutional settlement and that is something that we should change. It is important that when we do have elections, we do not have the whole second Chamber elected in one go, because that runs the danger of having the two Chambers at loggerheads because they have different mandates, both clearly established by election. That is why it is important that we have a rolling system of elections to the second Chamber.
	Many people focus primarily on the revising job and the confrontation that the second Chamber might have with the Government. However, it is often the Government who use the second Chamber to introduce amendments that they have had more time to think about. That is a very important role and one of the reasons why we need a second Chamber. Another is the process of scrutiny in a different environment, away from the rigours of the constituency focus that we have in this House, and that can be done better in a second Chamber.
	The other principle, which should be our primary principle, is democracy. I was partly brought up in Spain under Franco, and many people from other countries, if they were to listen to British people talk about democracy today, would be bewildered and saddened. They would ask why we are so jaded about democracy. What is wrong that we are able to insist on democracy in Iran, Iraq or elsewhere in the world, but are not prepared to stand by it in this country? Have we been voting for too long? Do we take it for granted?
	Reform of the House of Lords is part of a steady progress from the end of the absolute monarchy under the Stuarts to the abolition of the rotten boroughs, the introduction of extended and then universal male suffrage, the secret ballot and, finally, votes for women. This will be seen as the next stage in an important process of change in Britain.

Edward Leigh: The hon. Lady can say that, but of course I cannot. I was about to say that this House has minimal control over the estimates, even though that was the function for which it was originally created hundreds of years ago.
	So what is wrong with the House of Lords as it is? We are told that it is not democratic and that only elections confer respectability. Apparently, the public are all in favour of the an elected upper House. At least, that is what all the focus groups say, but focus-group policies always ensure that liberal orthodoxy wins in this House. That is why I am always on the losing side in every free vote that we have.
	Be that as it may, I spent some minutes talking to some of my constituents earlier today and they asked some sensible questions. Is there any appetite for elections to the House of Lords? Does it do a good job already? What would the turnout be in elections for a third, or half, of half a Parliament, which could delay legislation for one year?
	What on earth would be the interest among the public for elections that would be much the same as those for Members of the European Parliament? I wonder whether any hon. Members presently in the Chamber—apart from those with London constituencies—can name a London MEP?

Edward Leigh: Well, it would have to be an anorak from the Liberal party. No sane person takes any interest in what MEPs do. The partially open, partially closed system being proposed will ensure that 100 people from the east midlands will go to a cinema in Nottingham to select a few people—who cannot get into this House—to be Members of the House of Lords. That is what the reality will be.
	No one in this debate has answered the point made 40 years ago by Reggie Maudling that
	"The problem of the second Chamber is not so much a potential challenge to us but the fact that it would reflect the political composition of the House, in which case it would be a rubber stamp, or a different political composition, in which case there would be a constant conflict between the two Houses."—[ Official Report, 19 November 1968; Vol. 773, c. 115.]
	At present, the House of Lords is a revising Chamber. Its Members make their points sensibly and well and then, after hours of debate, they back down and accede to the elected Chamber. The system works pretty well.
	No one has given a convincing explanation of what will happen when elected people in the other place say that they have greater democratic legitimacy and refuse to back down. Will the Government invoke the Parliament Act every year, on just about every Bill? What would that do for democracy?
	I accept that I might lose that argument, and that people really might want elections to the House of Lords. For the moment, let us assume that elections will make this place more vigorous. I do not understand the argument that to ensure that we become more vigorous we must reform the other place, but the elections that are held should be based on the system that people understand. We should have senators for Lincolnshire, or London, or Derbyshire: we do not need them to be elected to represent enormous regions that no one understands.
	Moreover, it is absurd that people should be allowed to serve for 15 years. Where did that idea come from? Even President de Gaulle, who wanted to be a republican king, did not want to serve for 15 years without an election.

Edward Leigh: That may not be a recommendation. It is still a daft idea. No one can accept it.
	Why are we cursed with the principle that all the electoral regions must be the same? Under the American constitution, both Rhode Island and California send two Senators to the US Congress. People in America understand who are their Senators.
	However, let us assume that I lose that point as well. I shall try to persuade the House about my final point. It is very important: it is at the heart of the amendment that I tabled, and I think that the Leader of the House may agree with it.
	I beg the House to ensure that the House of Lords is not filled with clones of the Members in this place. We in this House are creatures of the Executive. Most of us, whatever may be said in public, privately want to be one thing and one thing only—a Minister of the Crown.

Pete Wishart: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for mentioning that poll. The reason why the public responded to the question as they did is because of the comparison to this place. Never before has the House of Commons been so unpopular, given the daily kicking we receive from the media and the way that people are encouraged to think about us.
	If we asked ordinary members of the public to give their predominant image of the House of Lords, they would describe two things. The first would be some belligerent old soul gently napping on those comfortable red Benches while listening to an interminable speech by a fellow octogenarian. A more sinister image would be of the House as a repository for one of the millionaire chums of one of the main parties in the cash for peerage and honours scandal. I am certain that the ordinary public do not view the House of Lords with any great affection; they do not even know what its functions are.
	We can test that statement. Is it not curious that among all the electoral options before us no one has suggested a stand-alone election to the House of Lords? The election has to be combined with another election. Let us imagine the excitement on Lords election day. The hustings would be packed to the gunwales. There would be no holding back. Everybody would be rushing off to the ballot box to re-elect the Baroness Billington of Boxington, or whatever, to reward that noble peeress for the fine work she had done while gently napping on the red Benches.
	The major context for this debate on reform of the House of Lords is the cash for honours scandal. Never before has the membership of the House of Lords been under such scrutiny from the public. More importantly, never before has the case for appointment by Prime Minister and by party been so undermined and so tarnished. In its opinion poll, the Hansard Society found that only 6 per cent. of the public favoured a fully appointed House. That shows the public's grave concerns about the potential abuse of appointment and about political parties stuffing the place full of their cronies and funders. The very suggestion that someone could sit in our legislature on the basis of having given a significant amount of money to a political party is as appalling as it is unacceptable. The defence we hear from No. 10 and others is that those people are in the House of Lords solely as party political appointees, which completely destroys any argument for political appointment.
	In the course of the next few weeks, days or perhaps hours, the Metropolitan police will determine whether that system is illegal. They should be left to get on with their work, on which I support them. However, we should use the opportunity for reform to ensure that never again will there be a whiff of suspicion that people can enter our legislature solely due to their ability to pay. The Scottish National party will not support any party political appointment and we encourage other Members not to accept that practice.
	What does the House of Lords cost? Do we get value for money? According to its annual report it cost a cool £106 million in 2005-06. At a time when we are holding back public sector pay, when nurses cannot even have an inflation-rate pay rise and our salaries and expenses are under such scrutiny, perhaps we should suggest that our friends in the press and the public have a look at what is going along at the other end of the building.
	Does the House of Lords give value for money? I asked the House of Commons Library for a breakdown of the peers' working day but it could not give me that information, so I put together my own study. I made a list of all the peers and selected all those who had taken the name of a place in Scotland as part of their title—we all know how much peers like their titles. I found 36 such peers and checked them up on the excellent TheyWorkForYou.com website. In the past year, 24 of them had made fewer than five contributions. More staggering and more appallingly, 10 of them had made no contribution at all. There is something quite out of kilter with the view of an over-worked peer even in what I admit was an unscientific, unreliable study. None the less, I believe it is quite representative of what actually goes on down there.
	There are obvious honourable exceptions. The Lords Forsyth, Foulkes, Campbell and Pearson have made more than 50 contributions each, but with the exception of those four peers the remainder of the 36 made fewer than 200 contributions over a year. To put that in perspective, TheyWorkForYou.com shows that my modest contributions to debates this year amount to 54, which is more than a quarter of the total contributions of those 36 peers. Apart from a few distinguished Members, those be-ermined bods do next to zilch.
	I am reminded of the chorus of the peers in "Iolanthe"—I promise I will not sing it to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker:
	"The House of peers,
	Throughout the years,
	Did nothing in particular,
	And did it very well."
	That perfectly sums up the House of Lords in its current incarnation.
	Let us contrast that picture with the House of Lords annual report, where we find that on an average sitting day 400 peers turn up. Of course, as we have heard, they have to turn up to qualify for their allowances, but what happens between turning up and making a contribution? For goodness' sake, simply asking for the window to be opened counts as a contribution. While Members consider that quandary, they should remember that their lordships' expenses cost the taxpayer a whopping £15 million in 2005-06.
	With more than 640 Members of Parliament surely we can find a new 21st-century solution to legislating. We need only look northwards to the Scottish Parliament—as has been mentioned already—to see that unicameralism can work. There are powerful Committees which indulge in all sorts of excellent pre-legislative scrutiny. Why cannot we have such powerful Committees in the House of Commons? We could combine Select and Standing Committees to make new powerful bodies that could take expert evidence and call expert witnesses. That is the 21st-century solution to the House of Lords quandary. It calls for scrapping the whole shooting match and starting the work ourselves.
	I am disappointed that we shall not have the opportunity to vote on the bishops—I join the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) on that. It is an absolute disgrace that in our multi-faith society we continue to favour one faith over all others. The fact that we are alone among western democracies in having religious representation in our legislature reinforces the view that the House of Lords is some sort of strange, eccentric, medieval throwback. We live in a multicultural, multi-faith society. Modern Britain is a society with great diversity of religions and non-religious beliefs, and continuing to privilege one denomination over others is preposterous and anti-democratic. If we are serious about modernising the House of Lords there can be no place for unelected bishops.
	I will vote for abolition, because I think it is the right way forward in this new century, but if we are to have a House of Lords I will also support a fully elected House as I favour that over an all-appointed House. However, my colleagues and I will not support any option that gives control of places in the House of Lords to political parties. We have seen how badly wrong that system has gone over the past few years. There can be no place in our legislature for the party funders or the cronies. Cash for peerages should be a wake-up call about the danger of appointments. I hope that the House heeds that call.

Simon Hughes: We should always look outside our own country and the hon. Gentleman is right in what he says. However, it seems to me that the fundamental weakness of the French system is that Ministers have no electors to whom they are directly accountable, so there is no one that they have to see every week and deal with on a day-to-day basis. They therefore lose touch very quickly with what the electors are thinking. That is the weakness of the French system.

Patrick Cormack: That is the sort of knee-jerk reaction that led to the abolition of the Greater London council, against which I voted, and then landed us with something far worse. We would be in danger of landing ourselves with something far worse here, I say to my hon. Friend, with whom I normally agree and whom I greatly respect and admire. We have to be extremely careful about what we are embarking on tonight.
	Our party is advancing a proposition that is inimical to its true roots and traditions. However, there are Members in all parties—I have worked in close co-operation with Members of both this House and the other place over the past four years—who believe in the basic stability of the British constitution and want an effective Parliament. They believe that many things can be done to improve this House and the interrelationship between the two Houses, but think, for the moment at least, that, in our second Chamber, we have a House of probity—I do not accept the aspersions that have just been cast, because the possible antics of one or two do not invalidate the actions of the many—a House that works, a House that is honourable and a House that carries out with due diligence duties that we are not always able to do. We must serve the interests of our constituents. I yield to no one as a democrat—I am fighting a certain democratic battle at the moment—and I believe that we would have a much more balanced constitution if we were to improve what we have got, rather than sweeping it away and bringing in an ill-devised scheme in its place.

Fiona Mactaggart: I want to focus on a simple theme. To borrow the language of the late Robin Cook, democracy is not just a process, but a value. It is a value that needs nurturing, and that is ignored at our peril. I am shocked by the fact that the turnout in the 2001 election was the lowest since 1918 and that in the 2005 election, when the present Government were elected, the lowest proportion of the electorate voted for the Government in any election ever. We have a duty to refresh, redesign and renew our democracy, rather than saying that the future of our country, our laws and the way in which our Government are held to account should be decided by people who think that they know best—frankly, that is what a system of appointment tends to achieve.
	When we consider public appointments, the extent to which certificates and management experience are valued over judgment, common sense, nous and an experience of using public services is quite striking. I am very concerned about many aspects of the situation. People have spoken a lot about the expertise of the other place, but one of the things that I value about hon. Members is the different life experience that those people who have fought elections bring to this job. From miners to personal injury lawyers, there is a wide range of experience. Many Members of this House are as expert in their fields as the much-vaunted experts in another place. The claim that we require appointment to achieve expertise is not well stated.
	I am worried that the increasing use of Nolan-type appointment procedures for public bodies is diminishing the participation of citizens and political parties in the process. A person applying for a public appointment must admit to membership of a political party, just after admitting to any convictions. The number of people admitting to membership of a political party who have received a public appointment has been going down year on year because of that fact. Being a member of a political party is something of which we should feel proud. It was a long time before I joined a political party, because I was right 100 per cent. of the time, and the Labour party was right only most of the time, and that is the story of this debate. The Leader of the House is absolutely right that in debates on reform, we have consistently said that we wanted an answer that was 100 per cent. right; we want the perfect answer, and we have made the perfect the enemy of the good.
	I am quite prepared to announce that I will vote for anything from 50 per cent. upwards. I think that 50 per cent. is utter nonsense, but I want the matter settled. I was shocked to hear the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), who spoke for the Liberal Democrats, redefine "predominantly" in the way that he did. His argument was, "Because I want to keep my ball perfect, I'm not going to vote for an arrangement that will get a result." I beg him to speak to his colleagues and think again before the vote tomorrow, because we have to get a result this time.
	I challenge the assumption, which has been a running theme of this debate, that elections would encourage the other place to challenge the House of Commons. Let us consider what has in the past led the other place to challenge this place. It has challenged the Commons when it disagrees with us. We should be completely clear about the occasions when the other House has voted against the Commons. It is obvious that when this House is run by Labour, the other place votes against us, and when the House of Commons is run by the Conservative party, it does not. The data are underpinned in every way by every piece of research that I could get from the Library.
	The Government with the largest number of defeats by the Lords was the 1974 to 1979 Labour Government, which had 343 defeats. The lowest number of defeats for a Labour Government was 108; that was immediately after the 1997 elections. I think that the other place felt that it would be a bit embarrassing to defeat us too much after that landslide, so it laid low. To claim that the increased number of defeats of the Labour Government since then reflects the fact that Members of the other place feel more legitimate is absolute nonsense. It has nothing to do with that; it is to do with the fact that the Lords are getting back into their old habits, and nothing else.

Andrew George: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart). I missed her earlier sedentary intervention, and she did not repeat it in her speech. She demonstrated that everyone, whatever their perspective, can get into contortions and adopt tortured logic to defend their position. She concluded that the people are in the best position to determine the resolution of such issues, and she made a cry for democracy to speak out. I entirely agree, but as I shall explain, we are asking the wrong question. I am not hectored in the streets by constituents who want to know what I am going to do about Lords reform. They do want to know, however, what we can do as their elected representatives to hold the Government to account. That is a different question and, as we are starting from a different position, reform of the second Chamber, which must be dealt with at some point, is a long way down the list. I fear that the Government will lead us a merry dance today and tomorrow. We are looking at an entirely subordinate issue, as they have diverted us from the primary issue with which the Chamber must deal.
	I speak in the debate with some caution and trepidation because I take a different view from those on my Front Bench. It is not that I am unconvinced by my hon. Friend the Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), or that I cannot be convinced, but I am not convinced yet, because I do not believe we have reached the point where the issues before us need to be decided. We are required to take subordinate decisions before the primary decision has been taken, which is illogical.
	The problem is that this "cart before the horse" approach, the obsession with process rather than product, the infatuation with means rather than end, and the zealotry behind the belief that we should resolve how people get into the second Chamber before we decide what they are there to do, leapfrog the logical decision that we would otherwise have taken, had the Government not sent us down the route of resolving the subordinate issues before the primary one is addressed.
	The primary issue that we should deal with was addressed by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing) in his contribution—he is no longer in his place. We should discuss how we improve the effectiveness of parliamentary scrutiny and revision. That is what we want the second Chamber to do, and we feel that we need to strengthen that because we are incapable of doing it ourselves. If we were able to do the job ourselves, we would not worry quite so much about the functions and composition of the second Chamber and its ability to save our bacon.
	I am not making an argument for a unicameral system. It would not be appropriate to deal with manifold issues of such weight and gravity as we deal with. I will not vote for it because I believe that a bicameral system is required. We need to start by looking at ourselves. This Chamber should be more accountable than it is. As the House would expect, I take the opportunity to argue that we should have a more representative Chamber, which would inevitably lead to more consensus and compromise. Ministers should respect and fear this place, rather than treating it with disdain, as they seem to do these days.
	When we have dealt with the matter of what we do in the primary Chamber, we can move on to discuss what we want a second Chamber to do. If we want a second Chamber, as I believe we do, it is not to compete with what we do, but to complement it and add to it. That debate should be held in this place and another place before we consider and decide how best that place is to be composed. That is why I am angry that we have been led by the nose by the Government into lengthy debates about the subordinate issue of the composition of the second Chamber, whereas we should be addressing issues of effective scrutiny, revision and holding the Executive to account. That is not improved by the changes discussed in the White Paper.
	We should ask ourselves how we can ensure that the second Chamber can provide scrutiny, revision and sober second thought. An element of democracy may well be relevant to such a Chamber. However, I would need to be convinced that we had properly addressed the issues as regards the tension between the primacy of this Chamber and the legitimacy of Members of the second Chamber, and the need for that Chamber to have representatives who complement the skills of this Chamber in being able to engage in sober second thought. Earlier, I asked the Leader of the House whether, in the words of the White Paper, the
	"current conventions are the right ones for a reformed house...certainly early in its life".
	The implication is that the current conventions will remain, but we do not know whether they will be challenged, as the primacy of this House is likely to be challenged—that is one of the tensions in the debate—if the second Chamber is largely or wholly elected.
	We do not know what would be the nature of the elections. As party tribalists, we are all aware of the inevitability of how candidates would emerge, particularly in regional list systems. As a Cornishman representing Cornwall, I would say that the Government's regions were created on the basis of bureaucratic convenience, as there is no community of interest in the south-west region. Of the MEPs representing the south-west, the nearest to my constituency lives about 150 miles away. It would not necessarily be in my area's best interests to have representatives in a second Chamber who claim to represent Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly but live in Swindon, Bournemouth, Winchester, or wherever.
	I am not sure that the process would result in people with strong revisionary skills or those capable of independent thought—talents that are clearly needed in the second Chamber. I imagine that the election literature would not be a thoughtful exposition of the need for sober second thought and revisonary skills, but would comprise the usual party political soundbites, attacks on Opposition leaders and claims of loyalty or defiance as regards the Government of the day.
	I have many concerns about how the debate has been handled, particularly the fact that we are taking it the wrong way round. If we had put the horse before the cart, many Members who have already determined that they will vote one way or another for a Chamber of the composition of their choice may have taken a different view.

Andrew Love: I start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who, sadly, is no longer in his place, on the way in which he introduced the debate and took so many interventions. I also congratulate him on the energy that he has shown in bringing the matter back to the House so early on in this Parliament. I congratulate him primarily on admitting that he has had a rethink and come to a conclusion. I am pleased that he has done that and glad that there are others—I have it on good authority—who will do the same, although we need more if we are to get a resounding majority for change.
	Let me make a plea, particularly to Members who do not want any change. Parliament has failed in the past—in 1949, in 1968, and most recently in 2003. On each occasion, there was stalemate and we were not able to take matters forward. Nevertheless, recognising that historical experience, we can all say that the status quo is unsustainable and that this issue will not go away. Democracy is beating at the door of the Houses of Parliament and will not be satisfied with no change.
	We must avoid the fiasco of 2003 and what Robin Cook described as a legislative train wreck. Parliament must show a will, and it can do that tomorrow when we vote. I believe that we should make the second Chamber more accountable. As an Opposition Member said, those who make the laws of the land should have a mandate from the people to do so. That is a simple principle.
	The second Chamber should be legitimate. No one has spoken a great deal about public opinion, but it has been consistent over the years. As Conservative Members will tell us, a poll conducted in the past few days confirmed again that the electorate would like a wholly or mainly elected second Chamber.
	The House of Lords needs to be representative. Hon. Members have spoken of elderly men in the other place, the lack of ethnic minorities and its domination by people from the south-east. We need to change that to make it reflect our society more.
	The first question that I asked myself was whether our system should be bicameral. My emphatic answer is yes, but only on the basis of the primacy of the House of Commons. I am not sure why there has been to-ing and fro-ing about the matter because there is more consensus about it than any other issue.
	The House of Lords should reflect the diversity of the United Kingdom—its nations, regions and new communities. There is a distinct lack of women and—dare I say it—working people, who remain greatly under-represented, in the other place. Of course, it should not be a mirror image of the House of Commons. I shall revert to that point.
	I reject the idea of a fully appointed Chamber, which would simply mean the status quo. Those who argue for that option claim that, otherwise, it would interfere with the House of Commons. However, we are considering reform of the House of Lords, not the House of Commons.
	It is also argued that we already have an effective House of Lords, which revises legislation. However, if we consider the past few years, Government amendments account for 90 to 95 per cent. of those made in the House of Lords. They are made on the whim of the Whips. The other place is an effective second Chamber in which the Government can play around with legislation.
	In the case of an appointed second Chamber, how would we get rid of the hereditaries? We have recently experienced the abomination of an election for a vacant place for the hereditaries. We need to get rid of them, and I believe that there is consensus about that.
	I am worried about the appointments commission. The fiasco of the people's peers has been mentioned. An appointments commission appoints people who reflect its members and does not fulfil the need to reflect society. I have a specific problem with the criteria for appointments. It has been suggested that they will override political nomination, which is currently the only link with democratic accountability. If the commission is set up, there will be no accountability.
	Let me be clear: I favour 100 per cent. election for reasons of legitimacy, accountability and gaining the support of the electorate, who understand and trust democracy. It is important that they give their overwhelming backing to the reform.
	However, given the speeches that we have heard today—I suspect that they reflect the views of Parliament—I recognise that the proposal for 100 per cent. election is unlikely to succeed. I shall therefore vote for a predominantly elected second Chamber. Let me repeat the plea that has come from all parties and all quarters, with reference to Voltaire, the best should not be the enemy of the good. I emphasise that especially to Liberal Democrat colleagues. I was saddened at the beginning of the debate when it appeared that the party's formal position is to support only 80 per cent. or more election. That does not reflect a recognition of the realities in the Chamber. I hope that Liberal Democrat Members will think clearly about the need to ensure a good result tomorrow night.
	Of course, the proposal will result in a hybrid House. Will it change the balance between the two Houses? Let me reject all the doomsday scenarios, which the Father of the House first raised and which Members on both sides of the House have discussed. Of course, the balance will be changed over time, but the concerns expressed can be addressed. The conventions that exist between the two Houses have been drawn up and published: they are known and transparent, and at this point in time are agreed between the two Houses.
	The Leader of the House suggested that we have a debate about the appropriateness of the conventions; we could go further and think about legislating in relation to those conventions. If we consider the international experience, however, we will see that on many occasions there is no direct relationship between the so-called democratic legitimacy of a second chamber and the powers that it holds. Often, second chambers have a great deal of democracy with few powers; sometimes, they have a lot of powers with little democracy. We should be reassured that we can create the arrangements between the two Houses that are necessary to ensure that the primacy of the House of Commons continues to be recognised.
	I have a particular concern, which other Members have reflected, about the recommendation that elected Members of the second Chamber should serve for one term of 15 years. I agree with those who produced the 2005 report, who are represented by the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), that a shorter term of 12 years might be more appropriate. My primary concern, however, is the lack of accountability: what happens after the person is elected? They cannot be re-elected, so they cannot be held accountable to the second Chamber or to their so-called electorate. That would undermine the legitimacy of the second Chamber.
	The issue will not go away. Tomorrow evening, we have the opportunity to make the change that will take the Houses of Parliament, and particularly the second Chamber, into the 21st century. That can be achieved only if we have a substantially elected second Chamber, and I commend that to the House.

Bernard Jenkin: I do not accept that. Polls upon polls have shown the public to believe that the upper House is doing a far better job than this House. It has far better poll ratings than our House. If people do not want an elected senate, "democracy for its own sake" becomes rather an unconvincing argument.
	I refer to polls merely to demonstrate the fact that there are polls and polls. I am confident that if any proposal for electing peers were to be decided by a referendum, the more the voters thought it, the more likely they would be to vote against it. Everyone thought that the Australians would vote against the monarchy, until they considered the alternatives. The Government thought that the north-east would vote for an elected assembly, until the people of the north-east counted the cost of more elections and more elected politicians. There is no public clamour for this change.
	The most superficially alluring reason for supporting elections is to rebalance the constitution. People say that the House of Commons is too powerful, and needs a more powerful elected upper House to hold it in check. I am impressed by the number of Members here who have raised that question, but it is the Executive who have gained far too much power, not this House.
	The glorious revolution of 1688 represented a settlement between the Crown and Parliament designed to ensure that Parliament controlled the law, that the judges would be impartial and that the machinery of government would be subject to the law. That arrangement has been subverted. Today's Prime Minister is immeasurably more powerful than the monarchy that was overthrown by Parliament in the civil war. Charles I never exercised a fraction of the power over supply and legislation that is enjoyed by modern Prime Ministers. Even when Lord Hailsham coined the phrase "elective dictatorship", he can never have imagined a House of Commons as cowed by the Executive as the House of Commons today.
	The real problem is the Executive's grip on the Commons timetable, under which every Bill in this House is subject to a guillotine. It will be interesting to see whether that applies to this Bill, should it actually begin its progress. That grip is reinforced by whipping on almost every matter, by the promise of high office in return for obedience—an interest that we do not have to include in the Register of Members' Interests—and by the threat of deselection under the terms now applied by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. As has been pointed out, we are little more than an electoral college for the office of Prime Minister. Whatever happened to the ideal that we should sit here in accordance with the Burkean tradition as representatives of our constituents exercising our judgment, rather than as delegates of centralised political parties? Ironically, if we implement a system for elections to the upper House, we will be implementing the same vice-like control of party over entry into that upper House. An appointed House can deal with that only through a proper appointments commission, and not by party-driven elections.

Bernard Jenkin: I do not think for a minute that that is the system that we will finish with in the long term. There might be that intention at the start, and it might even reach the statute book for a period, but if we start down the track towards having an elected House we will finish up with a fully fledged Senate, with all that flows from that.
	Who could possibly argue that embroiling the upper House in the same mind-numbing party antics that we engage in so much in this Chamber will increase the authority and legitimacy of that House? Parliament is already held in enough contempt. This will accelerate the process. Election turnouts for these elections are likely to be the same as for elections to local government or, even worse, the same as for the European Parliament—which is pitiable.
	If we want to recover respect for Parliament, we in this House need to improve what we do. That can be achieved only by us recovering our independence from the Executive and initiating a process of separation between the Executive and this House. The payroll should be limited and we should consider whether some Ministers should be recruited from outside Parliament, rather than from within it. Our timetable should no longer be under the control of Government, and we should consider how it could be determined by a Committee elected by this House, rather than, as now, handed down by the Executive. Those two measures would do far more to address the imbalance in our modern constitution than any change to the composition of the other place.
	I urge the House to vote to retain our respected revising Chamber as primarily an appointed House. If we vote for an elected House, let there be a referendum. After all, this would be a far greater change than a mere regional assembly or elected mayor, and those who have voted for referendums on those matters would be honour-bound to vote for a referendum on this issue.
	I shall not be the least embarrassed if this occasion turns out to be another so-called train wreck. That will simply reflect that there is no consensus for reform, which is a very good reason not to reform at all. It should be hard to change our constitution, and I am glad that it is. I shall vote for the maintenance of our bicameral Parliament but for the other place to become wholly appointed. My support for that proposition in respect of any Bill that might be introduced will depend on the means for appointment. Unless one of the propositions for reform is approved I will vote to retain the remaining hereditary element, in line with the assurance given by the Government—by the Lord Chancellor—back in 1999 that that should go only when stage 2 "has taken place." With no stage 2, the remaining hereditaries should remain, in line with the Government's assurance. I regret that I cannot support the amendment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) because that would imply that I support the principle of elected peers, which I hope that I have explained I do not.

John Bercow: My starting point is that unicameralism equals monopoly and that monopoly spawns arrogance. The antidote to that monopoly and arrogance is a legitimate, credible, self-confident, and thereby effective, second Chamber. I listened with interest and respect to argument enunciated once again by the right hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) in favour of abolition of the House of Lords. I do not agree with that view. At this stage of our constitutional arrangements, it is essential that we retain, strengthen, embolden and respect a second Chamber and derive very much more from it.
	That second Chamber is incredibly important and if we are to have it, we have to decide the fundamental question. Do we preserve a wholly appointed Chamber or go for a variant on the theme of election and democracy? My strong, passionate and insistent preference is for a predominantly elected—or better still, wholly elected—second Chamber. I simply do not buy the argument that we can continue with the status quo. I acknowledge the frequency with which one hears the argument invoked that the House of Lords is doing a thoroughly good job. I said earlier in an intervention on the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) that although some peers work exceptionally hard and frequently demonstrate great expertise, the most vociferous voices in support of the excellence of the existing House of Lords are existing Members of the House of Lords. On the principle that no one should be judge in his own cause, we should not attach much weight to that kind of special pleading.
	My view is that we have to move very much in favour of election, and in holding that view I immediately confront the argument that if we do so, we will somehow face the threat of a rival mandate. That is a fundamentally nervous, under-confident and grievously and unnecessarily apprehensive position for this House to take. Why should there be that problem? It is said that the primacy of this Chamber is based on, derived from and exclusively dependent on the fact only of our being the elected House. I do not agree with that. There are all sorts of bases of the primacy of this House, and that argument ought to be strongly and repeatedly asserted. The reality is that the Commons is the source of the Government of this country. The Commons is the body that controls supply. The Commons is the organisation that exclusively has the power to tax and to spend. The Commons is the body that has the final say on legislation. The Commons decides both its own powers and those of the other House. The notion that, simply because we entertain and then go for reform, we will somehow immediately resile from, repudiate or put at risk that essential pre-eminence is fundamentally wrong.
	The truth is that people who argue that position, whether they know it or not, are really arguing against significant change of any kind, and they are probably for the most part—with the notable exception of my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin)—people who have always been of that position. We can retain primacy, and we can and should assert distinctiveness and separateness. One manifestly effective way in which to do so would be to say, "We will not have Ministers as Members of the House of Lords. They can appear before, but they shall not sit in, that second Chamber." That would serve to reinforce and underline the reality that the second Chamber is performing a function complementary to, but not duplicatory of, the House of Commons.

David Howarth: I have come to a conclusion that is similar to that of the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow); it is not quite the same. I believe that the upper House has to be 100 per cent. elected, and my reasons are very similar to those given by the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) and the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd).
	The central point is that the primacy of the House of Commons comes down to its power to make and break Governments, and to decide who the Government shall be. However, that source of strength is also its source of weakness. The Government depend for their existence on the confidence of the Commons, but that very fact renders the Commons not very good at scrutinising legislation. That job needs a second Chamber.
	Several hon. Members have talked about the power of the House of Commons over supply. I am a new Member of the House, but I am struck by how weak our power over supply has become. Formerly, the House was able to control expenditure, but that power has been reduced to a series of formal debates. Decisions about where money should or not be spent are at the heart of policy, but the House cannot now debate different spending plans. There is no way that we can debate in this Chamber, as council chambers can up and down the country, what the Government want to spend taxpayers' money on as opposed to the Opposition parties. That is the reality of the situation of supply, rather than the form.
	We need a second Chamber to carry out those tasks, but it has been argued that this Chamber can be reformed to produce similar results. Reforms are necessary, but they will never be enough. The Government of the day depend for their existence on the confidence of the House, so the power of the Whips will always be with us. That power will always be necessary to ensure that the House is run in the way that it has to be in order that its functions are carried out. As a result, we will never be able to hold the Government to account to the extent that a fully independent House of Commons could.
	The issue in the end comes down to why we want a second Chamber in the first place. While the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) was speaking about the 17th century, it occurred to me that, as the successor to Oliver Cromwell as the Member for Cambridge I might have something to say about that. This House in 1649 passed a resolution:
	"That the House of Peers is useless and dangerous and ought to be abolished",
	but I have come to the conclusion that we should not follow through on that 1649 resolution and that a second Chamber is necessary. The big question for me is why.
	Why is a second Chamber necessary? The argument in the White Paper, which my hon. Friend the Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) repeated, was simply to do with the size and complexity of the task that faces us. I am afraid that I am not quite convinced by that argument. It would imply, for example, that we should look for a second Chamber for the European Parliament—a proposition that would chill the blood of most hon. Members and most citizens of the European Union.
	The real reasons why we need a second Chamber come down to two. One is the need for revision and the other is the need for a political check and balance. I have to say that the role of a revising Chamber by itself is not quite enough, if by "revising Chamber" one means a Chamber of suggestions, which can improve legislation but without challenging the underlying policy. That strikes me as a council of state function, and if we want the Chamber to have such a function and be made up of experts, the best way to deal with that is the way the French do it. They have competitive examinations to decide who should sit in that body. It is a purely expert function, not the sort of function that the House of Lords has been carrying out.
	The present structure of the House of Lords—a Chamber based on patronage—does not seem to me to be one that can carry out such a function very well. The expertise in the House of Lords is patchy. I sat on the Committee that considered the Companies Bill. It struck me that, although there are many renowned lawyers and business people in the House of Lords, the great experts in company law in this country—with one exception, who studied company law and researched it with great distinction until the 1960s—do not sit in the House of Lords. If we want a Chamber based on expertise, we have to look elsewhere for the experts.
	The fundamental question is: why those experts, not other experts? Why do we have the experts in the House of Lords whom we have? The answer to that is patronage rather than inherent ability.

David Howarth: That is a good question; it shows the fundamental weakness of any appointments system, which is why I do not want many such people. Perhaps at some point random selection might be used.
	I draw a distinction between the 80:20 and 60:40 proposals. I fully understand the arguments for voting for any proposal that introduces some elected element, but the problem with the 60:40 proposal is the high risk that the votes of the 40 per cent. would determine the question. The internal culture of such a House would not necessarily be a culture of democracy, so for me 60:40 is a step too far at this stage. The 50:50 proposal would in no way lead to a predominantly democratic House.
	The question will return to the House in a different form later. We shall not be voting on legislation tomorrow, but on what might be called a "Straw" poll. If I were faced with the choice of 60:40 or nothing, I might come to a different conclusion, but we are not faced with choice tomorrow, if I understand the procedure we are adopting, so I shall stick to my initial conclusion and vote for 100 per cent. or for 80:20.

Peter Luff: There are some arguments on the other side. I shall come to that later.
	There would be an end to all UK film making, including most television drama—they all use radio mikes now, not the old boom mikes. Think of "The West Wing", with its long continuous shots in corridors and offices. That is what audiences expect, and radio mikes are needed to do it. Lord Puttnam—David Puttnam—told me:
	"In the past decade the film and television industry has moved to a point at which virtually all sound recording is now down to using wireless technology."
	So no radio mikes means that no more British triumphs, like "The Queen", will be made in Britain and, by the way, no Bollywood extravaganzas will be filmed at British locations, either.
	TV news gathering would also grind to a halt. All outside broadcasts now depend on radio mikes and spectrum for the cameras to transmit footage back to the outside broadcast van. One cannot have trailing cables at scenes of terrorist outrages like 7/7, and one cannot have single-handed film crews interviewing people, including MPs, if they have to hold a furry mike in front of the interviewee as well as operate the camera. ITV told me:
	"Access to these channels has been essential to ITV's effective operation and news coverage; they are used to service talkback and radio microphones, on location and in studios. To date, the Joint Frequency Management Group has effectively managed allocation of spectrum to broadcasters, ensuring efficient and effective use of radio spectrum to serve broadcast needs.
	Any potential loss of the ability to operate radio microphones will compromise the quality of the news service they can provide nationally and locally.
	Over the years, ITV has made a significant investment in these systems, and the future viability of this investment will be in doubt."
	Outside sports broadcasts, from Formula 1 to the rugby World cup, depend on radio mikes for the reporters and camera crews to cover the event, and even to let us hear the referee's comments to players. One of the best inventions in TV coverage of cricket, the snickometer, would also be endangered. As for the possible effect on the 2012 Olympics, the BBC told me:
	"It is difficult to see how the UK can meet the commitments it set out in its bid regarding access to spectrum."
	Major special events would suffer in particular, as they make huge use of the spectrum, so no more "Children in Need", no more televised 80th birthday parties for Her Majesty, no more Brit awards, no more VE-day celebrations, no more Band Aid or Live8. Finally, perhaps my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) may never have become Leader of the official Opposition without a radio mike. He needed one to walk confidently around the stage at Blackpool in October 2005, delivering to that imposing hall and a wider television audience his barnstorming and inspiring speech.
	One of our greatest screen and stage actors, Patrick Stewart, of "Star Trek" and "X-Men" fame, said to me, also making the point that even if the actors do not need mikes, the backstage crew do:
	"Modern entertainment depends on the use of wireless equipment to communicate. I am currently in 'The Tempest' in the West End and the stage management rely on radio technology to do their work. The same is true for film making and other forms of entertainment.
	If access to the spectrum became unaffordable or unavailable, the British entertainment industry would be severely handicapped and perhaps even grind to a halt. It would be disastrous."
	There is, however, one silver lining—no radio mikes would mean an end to reality television, and programmes like "Big Brother" would no longer grace our screens!
	The programme making and special events, or PMSE, sector is a disparate and diverse community of content producers, manufacturers, rental organisations and freelance engineers.